Captain's Report
This year’s Tour to Shropshire was developed with the help of Countrywide Golf who helped to fix the courses, tee times and accommodation in Ironbridge (the Valley Hotel). The hotel turned out to be an ideal venue, and they looked after members well, including a superb meal on night 1 after the opening round of golf at Shrewsbury GC. The game saw a hole in one from Barry Thornton – (which his partners all thought had gone in the water short of the green!) and a Day 1 win for Peter Cherry.
Day 2 was held at Shifnal GC with Barry retaining his hole-in-one form and winning the day. Unfortunately, Peter had a minor collapse and was overtaken overall by several of players – he put his loss of form down to a dirty glass the night before! This is not a major surprise given that we had dinner at a Mexican in Ironbridge which served any food you like providing it included chips – including the desert!
Round 3 took us to Hawkstone by which stage Ian Robinson had started to show his consistency pulling ahead by a point from next year’s Captain, Stphen Fitz-Gerald. Peter Cherry also recovered his composure and was only a couple of points behind. Sadly, he had to leave after the game for a work event so we will never know ….. The final dinner was at a local pub, the Malthouse, who looked after us well and provided copious supplies of beer and food – a great final night.
Our last round was at Bridgnorth GC close to the River Severn. An interesting and well-prepared track that was a fitting location to decide the champion. This time Ian stamped his authority on the field and his 38 points gave him both a day victory and the Claret Jug. His closest challenger was me – but I was still some 8 points adrift!
The Tour started with 15 Members – not bad against a target of 16. With Richard Burman only planning to play the first 3 rounds and Peter departing unexpectedly after the 3rd round, it was still a good turnout. The courses were all very green (unusual for the southerly based members!) and provided a good test of golf.
I know my Vice-Captain is looking at a Wales Tour next year and I hope as many of you as possible can attend – the Tour is a lot of fun and a chance to play courses you would not normally play.